Cider, or CYDER, is the fermented juice of apples, and is extensively prepared in Devonshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and other parts of England, in the United States, and in the northern districts of France and Germany. The apples commonly used for making cider are by no means tempting to the palate, are in fact unfit either for eating raw or ordinary cooking. Three kinds may be used—viz. the bitter, the sweet, and the sour; but the first are generally preferred, and are specially cultivated in the cider orchards. These bitter apples contain a considerable amount of sugar, but it is masked to the palate by the extractive matter also present. Late apples afford much better cider than early ones. The apples after gathering are left for some days to mellow or mature. This has the further advantage of showing the unsonnd apples, which are rejected, as giving the whole an incurably musty flavour. In the United States it is considered that a certain proportion of decaying fruit improves the flavour; probably they act by hastening or modifying the fermentation. The apples are crushed by passing them between fluted rollers, or in mills of various kinds. Some improved cider-mills grind the fruit to a perfectly homogeneous pulp. These mills give an increase in quantity, with a falling-off in quality of the product. The pulp thus obtained is placed in tubs or vats with or without a little water, and left for about a day. During this time fermentation commences and assists in breaking up the cells of the pulp. Or the pulp is more completely broken up at once. The pulp is next placed in coarse canvas or haircloth bags, or on a wicker-work or perforated frame for the juice to drain into a tub or vat. This juice is reserved for the best quality of cider. The remaining juice is removed by squeezing the bags and their contents in a press. The old process of laying up the pulp or pomace in straw for pressure gives a good quality of juice. The greater the pressure the coarser the flavour, due to that of the pips and skins, but of course the quantity is increased by additional pressure.
The next process is the full fermentation. This is usually effected in casks with large bung-holes. The casks being filled with juice, much of it froths over during fermentation, and therefore the casks are placed over open tubs which catch it. Care is necessary to keep the casks full, so that the excess of yeast may thus be continually removed, such excess promoting acetic fermentation. This is continued from three to eight or ten days according to the alcoholic strength required. It is then racked off from the sediment into clean casks and stored in a cellar or other place with cool and equable temperature. In the following spring this racked cider is re-racked, and is then ready for use or sale.
A weaker cider, used as a common beverage for farm labourers, is made by adding about half its weight of water to the marc or pressed pulp and fermenting this as above. The refuse pulp or 'apple cheese' is used as food for pigs and cattle.
Cider contains from 4 to 10 per cent. of absolute alcohol—i.e. 8 to 20 per cent. of proof spirit, according to quality. This depends upon the quantity of sugar originally in the juice, and upon the care in fermentation, especially in respect to temperature, which should be about 50° F. This is too commonly neglected, and the fermentation left to the accidents of weather. Much acetic acid is thus formed when the autumn is warm, rendering the cider rough. Sweet cider is that in which only a small proportion of the sugar has been converted by fermentation into alcohol or acetic acid. The best cider is mellow and vinous, neither sweet nor acid. The bottling of cider demands much care. Only clear samples are fit for bottling, and they should be at least twelve months old and free from hardness or acidity. Good mellow or slightly sweet cider carefully bottled before fermentation is fully completed constitutes champagne cider, and is used as a basis of factitious champagne.